1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a recording device for high speed print-out of output information from an electronic computer, etc., and, more particularly, to an optical information recording device, wherein a laser beam, preferably a polarized light beam, is modulated and controlled by a pattern signal such as a figure, character, etc. from an electronic computer, etc., and wherein the size of the recorded information signal for the figure, character, etc. is made variable.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The recording of the character information output from an electronic computer has heretofore been carried out by the use of a drum type or chain type mechanical impact line printer, an optical line printer comprising a combination of an optical character drum and electrophotography, a multi-stylus electrostatic printer, a CRT printer comprising a combination of CRT (chiefly OFT) and electrophotography, or other types of printer. With the mechanical impact printer and the optical line printer, however, it has been impossible to change the size of the recorded characters without slowing down the recording speed. On the other hand, the electrostatic printer in which the character size is changeable has suffered from limited resolving power, and the CRT printer has also been disadvantageous in that it is difficult to maintain a high quality of printing condition for a long period of time in view of the necessity for maintaining stability of the CRT circuit. Thus, these conventional recording devices have encountered various difficulties in changing the size of the output characters from an electronic computer, etc., and in rapidly producing the character output (especially Chinese characters) of high printing quality.